


Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-Lived Beasties

by MercurialMagpie



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26930272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialMagpie/pseuds/MercurialMagpie
Summary: Tony is about to solve a 70-year mystery, and create a few more
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10
Collections: Marvel Spookytober Prompts 2020





	1. Reap What You've Sown

**Author's Note:**

> My Stuckony Discord server is having a Halloween event, and this story is my contribution. Kind of jumping all over with the prompt list, but I promise it will make for a coherent story! (Also, this chapter was supposed to go up yesterday, but Life (don't talk to me about life!) got in the way. Ah, well.)  
> Fills Day 9, "Abandoned House"

Tony was well aware that this had been a stupid decision. He’d known it as he was making it, but he was nineteen, and far too full of the desire to please the group of rich assholes pretending to be his peers he’d left at the end of the block, so here he was, approaching the slightly mouldering abandoned house they’d dared him to go inside. (And, seriously, there had to be something wrong here, who leaves a house in the Hamptons abandoned?) He was also far too full of the high quality booze they’d all been guzzling like Gatorade, and just sober enough to recognize how drunk he was. But he’d accepted the dare, and there was no way in Hell or Harvard he was backing out now. He swallowed against a suddenly dry throat and pushed open the gate.

The front gardens looked like they had been nice ten or twenty years ago, but they were now overgrown enough that Tony was glad it was October, and not May, when his nose and eyes would be absolute waterworks. Fortunately, the path was stone and still relatively clear. When he got to the bottom of the steps, he paused and looked around, as if the house’s owners might pop up out of the shaggy bushes. A couple of his so-called friends were lurking just outside the gate, and they waved him forward with badly stifled giggles. Stepping up onto the porch, which at least didn’t have any holes in it, he briefly considered pretending the door was locked and he couldn’t get in, but he suspected they’d expect him to try at least one window as well, so he probably couldn’t duck out of things that way.

The door swung open as soon as he touched it, anyway. That… was really weird. Like, maybe he should be worried, weird. And just as weird, the space inside was surprisingly clean, no cobwebs, not even any dust as far as he could tell (given the lack of anything like streetlights around here). No, no, it was fine. Probably there were just squatters in here, and they kept it clean. Or a Realtor had come in earlier, and hadn’t locked up properly. Nothing he couldn’t handle, not like the trouble he’d have with the mockery of his supposed companions back there on the sidewalk. He took a deep, fortifying breath, and stepped in through the door. 

The hall and the couple of rooms he could see into were all echoingly empty, not a stick of furniture or thread of decoration anywhere, and the next couple of steps he took were more confident.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Tony spun, heart in his throat, his mind already scrambling for explanations (just the wind, just Ty and Sunset messing with me, just-) to see nothing and no one. And then there was a voice, dark and smoky like good whiskey, murmuring from just over his left shoulder. “Hmm, brave little bunny, creeping into the wolves’ den...”

He spun around again, but again there seemed to be nothing and no one around him. Another voice, this one thick and sweet like chocolate, chuckled right behind him. “Drunk little bunny, trying so hard not to be scared...”

This? This was not cool. Tony planted his feet on the ground and his fists on his hips, and made his voice as loud and as strong as he could manage. “I’m not a bunny. I’m a Stark, and Stark men are made of iron. I’m not afraid of you, whoever you are.”

Abruptly, as if they’d been spliced into the shot, there were two men (or man-shaped beings, at least, Tony wasn’t ruling anything out at this point) standing just out of arm’s reach in front of him. The one on Tony’s left, huge and hulking, pale hair and paler skin, grinned, a smile that seemed more icicles than teeth, and spoke in that deliciously chocolate voice. “Well, now, that’s quite a name to invoke, especially around us.”

The one on Tony’s right, a bit shorter but no less broad, agreed in his whiskey voice. “Yeah, but he’s sure got the look down. What’s your name, pretty boy?”

Tony swallowed hard, willing his heart rate to normalize. “I’m Tony.” Now that his eyes had adjusted, he peered closer and certain things clicked in his mind. “You! You’re Captain America, you’re Steve Rogers! And you’re Bucky Barnes! Holy crap, my dad and Granddad searched for you guys like their whole lives! Where have you been? What happened to you? Why don’t you look like you’ve aged at all?”

Barnes smiled at him- or at least, bared his fangs. “Ooh, Stevie, he’s clever. Can we keep him?”

Rogers struck a thoughtful pose, eyes boring into Tony. “You know, I think that’s an excellent idea. Together?” Tony barely registered a flicker of movement, and then they were pressing up against him, pinning his arms to his sides, mouths descending on his neck, and the world went black.


	2. Ride the Whirlwind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony attempts to come to terms with his new existence  
> Fulfills Day 13- "you know you're not alive, right?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deadlines? You mean, like when vampires do the conga? That's alright, I've got all month, right? ...right?

Steve lounged back on a sofa in their latest hideout (a basement nicer than any apartment either of them had had when they were alive) and watched Bucky pour an entire jar of blood into a saucepan to heat on the stove. Good. Soon the smell would fill the room, and the newest member of their little family would wake to his new life. 

Steve found himself pondering terms. Before tonight, Steve had been the only childe Bucky had ever sired, and Steve had never sired anyone at all. But they had changed Tony over together, made a joint effort to drain him quickly, dripped their blood into his slack mouth at the same rate. So what did that make Tony to him? Sire and childe? Blood siblings of some strange sort? Again that familiar itch- they knew so little. Bucky’s sire had spent barely more than a week with him, teaching him the basics of his new existence, though Steve had never gotten a straight answer as to whether the nameless sire had left before or just after Bucky turned Steve. (He’d never pressed too hard. He was just grateful the other had found Bucky in that ravine in time to save him.) Everything else they had figured out together in the days and months and years since. Even now, Steve had a fleeting worry that they’d done it wrong.

He didn’t know why, but this beautiful boy was meant to be part of them.

His worries began to fall away when Tony, laid out on another sofa, started to stir and murmur. Suddenly, in the blink of a vampire’s eye, he went from prone to upright, leaping to his feet with fangs bared and eyes wild and red. Steve jumped to his feet as well, more from startlement than anything else.

“Hey now, hey now.” Bucky strolled over, radiating calm, steaming saucepan in one hand, the other held out soothingly. “It’s ok, we’ve got you. Here, drink this, it’ll help.” Tony reached out with both hands, wrapping them around the pan, and brought it to his mouth, gulping eagerly (but still surprisingly neatly).

When he was done, he dropped the pan to the floor and himself back onto the sofa. “OK, wow, that was weird.” He rubbed his temples. “I feel like I spent three days in the workshop and then slept for twenty hours. Coffee, I need- Does my mouth taste like blood?”

Both older vampires took a step closer, Steve at least caught between wanting to reassure Tony, and wanting to keep him from bolting. Bucky knelt, so he wasn’t looming quite so badly. “And I bet it tastes a lot better than you expect, yeah?”

Tony sat up sharply. “Now, hold on a second. Sure, I like my steaks rare, but whatever you think is going on here, it’s not.” He stood, looking wildly around the room. “Now, I’m going to go, maybe visit the ER, make sure you two weirdos haven’t poisoned me, I feel like I might’ve been poisoned, maybe visit the police station, get you charged with kidnapping, I haven’t decided yet, and then I’m going to go back to my normal life, and I’m going to pretend this whole episode never happened. Because obviously it didn’t.”

Steve laid a reassuring (and restraining) hand on his shoulder. “Tony… you know you’re not alive, right? You can’t just-”

“No.” Tony smacked his hand away and backed up two steps, shaking his head roughly. “No, it’s just- Ty slipped me something, it’s all a hallucination. Or I drank too much, this is all an alcohol-poisoning coma dream, or, or, Sunset hired you guys, you’re actors, this is all… all… why can’t I feel my heartbeat? Usually when I get to this point in a panic attack, my heart is racing. Why isn’t my heart racing?”

Bucky stepped up behind him, bracketing him between them. “Come on, now, Tony, you’re our clever boy. You know the answer.”

Tony turned a little and stepped back again, getting himself out of their little sandwich, and glared at both of them. “There’s no such thing as vampires!”

Steve couldn’t help the half-feral grin that bubbled up out of him. “And yet, here we all are. You know it’s the only thing that fits the facts.”

Tony’s knees apparently gave out, because he slumped to the floor right there where he’d been standing. “Holy crap, I’m a vampire.” He looked up at them, looking impossibly young and lost. “Now what?”


End file.
